A Property-Rights Approach to the Coronavirus Pandemic

Most official responses to the coronavirus pandemic have included some sort of a suppression policy--the shutting down of non-essential business firms--in order to promote social distancing and slow the spread of infection. This white paper will not question the wisdom or efficacy of such economic suppression policies. Instead, this paper will make a modest constitutional proposal: that all such suppression polices occur within a well-defined legal and property-rights framework under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.